Monday, April 28, 2008
Never fear, Ben's strapped in!
Ben Beagle
The aging, semi-hysterical retired reporter rides shotgun with the greatest station wagon driver of them all down the rocky road of life. Mondays and Wednesdays, steady as she goes.
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Okay. So I went and bought this pair of suspenders online because these people said they were non-slip.
I have become interested in suspenders in my golden years because I find that my pants fall off a lot without them -- which is not a good thing to do when you take your car in for inspection or when you have an appointment with your neurologist.
Besides, I've always admired the way John Wayne wore suspenders when he played a cavalry officer who was able to save the entire western end of the United States from being taken over by Native Americans and Sitting Bull.
Boy, you could tell the Duke never worried about his pants falling off under any conditions.
Anyway, I fretted for a long time when these instances of suspender failure almost occurred -- kind of like Janet Jackson at the Super Bowl that time.
Yeah. I know Janet's suspenders weren't the problem.
You know how it is. You feel this certain alarming snap at your back and you know that you are the victim of partial suspender failure.
(OK. I know that fashionable people these days wear suspenders that are secured by buttons, but you have to have pants with buttons on them -- which I don't have.)
(And the Duke had those same accessories.)
(No wonder he was so confident when he ordered a charge. A man who orders a charge isn't afraid of his pants falling off.)
(I'd also like to say here that when the Duke shrugged on his suspenders and went on to ride the regiment on to glory, his suspenders never got all tangled up like mine do.)
But, to return to the world as it lies about us like a dream, I report that I like these new suspenders and I was willing to take to the streets to praise them.
Heck. I went to the bank three times without fear of my pants falling off.
And then I got an e-mail asking me how I liked the suspenders and I ran into a cyberspace nightmare.
I tried. I really did. I typed in my Amazon password and then was asked if I were over 13 years if age.
And then I was asked to "enter the title for your review" and -- naive old person that I am -- I typed in "suspenders" and wrote in this little box that these suspenders were great.
And then I got this message, like I was still in the third grade or something and had been late for class because my cousin was beating me up on the playground, that said "BENJAMIN CREATE YOUR REVIEW."
Hey Amazon. You know what you can do with your suspender reviews.
